God watches MTV

He must, because I feel as though I'm being Punk'd. Why? Because it appears that my morning sickness has come back, again with the word morning being a complete misnomer. I wake up nauseated, and after I have a two second window where it seems to have gone away and I'm brave enough to eat so that the fetus doesn't starve...well, it comes back. Literally. Heaving with a booboo rib isn't my idea of a fun time. Damn it.

The icing on this proverbial cake of pregnancy is that I've begun having some signs of early labor (at 32 weeks). Am I awful and/or selfish for being the slightest bit excited that the end is possibly a little closer than expected? I know if Gumdrop is born now she'd be in the hospital for a while, unless the steroid inhaler that I've been taking for the last week is pumping (clap) her up, making her little lungs mature a wee bit faster than normal. I was born (I think) 6 weeks early, and hey - look at me. I'm fine. I'm sure I am awful, though, for that and for many other reasons, but honest to God, I'm ready to be done with this pregnancy. And I plan on either forever forgoing sex or getting Hubs neutered so that I never come close to getting pregnant again. I always wanted a big family, but I'll have to buy them or steal them (kidding!!), because I will never, ever put my body through a pregnancy again. I apologize if someone reading this isn't able to have children, and I realize that it's a blessing to be able to carry a child (I really do, actually), but my body is just not one that enjoys being pregnant, and my doctors will agree.

The silver lining on this cloud is that baby boy is FINALLY calling me mama. Sure, he's been able to say it for a while, but he never called for me like he does his daddy. He's never had to - I'm always there for him, rarely out of his sight. But, coincidentally, the morning after this little rib mishap occurred, lo and behold, he pointed to me and said "mama." Oh, what music to my ears. I'm sure when he's older and it goes from the sweet, innocent, filled-with-love call of "mama" to "Mom. Mom. Mommy. Ma. Mommommommommom...." it'll drive me nuts, but for now...and maybe it's the painkillers...but now - I'll revel in it. Thanks for saving it, baby boy. I needed it this week, and I love you so so much.

But wait - there's more.

I have a cracked rib. The culprit? This frigging cough. No fooling. Doctor said it'll take 6 weeks to heal - right about the time Gumdrop is due. I'm thrilled that the last few weeks of alone time I had left with baby boy have now been ruined.

Doctor's orders? Take it easy.
Ok, dude - I'm a stay-at-home mom with no friends or family in the vicinity and a husband who works full time. I'll sit on the couch all day eating bonbons, just 'cause you said so, and let the baby take care of himself.

This bastard hurts more than recovering from a c-section did. Doc wrote me a 'script for pain meds, but how the hell can I, in good faith, drug my fetus? I'll be paranoid that she's stoned or dead when she's not moving from the effects of the drug.

The entire pregnancy has been like one big comedy sketch...except it's not funny.

Well, wait - I guess this could be considered funny. Or gross. Or both. My body also chose this time to grace me with diarrhea, but due to the unrelenting, insurmountable pain that comes with reaching around to wipe myself....well, I'm just glad *I'm* not the one doing the laundry!

My "water" broke

Before I begin, let me just say that there's nothing like having a huge fetus head pushing up into the right side of your rib cage. Nothing in the world. I'd like to kill myself at the moment, just to make the pain stop. Or...you know...take some more of that sweet, sweet nectar of Tussionex, just so that I don't realize how much it hurts. Kidding. I'll be too busy counting down the days 'til my c-section, when I'll be blessed with a prescription for a sweet stash of Percocet while recovering a beautiful baby girl.

Okay. Now, as if my day yesterday didn't suck enough (thank you for the comments and e-mails, by the way), my night added a wee bit more stress, although only temporarily.

The scene:
The time is 1:30 a.m. Big fat 16-months-pregnant woman propped up in bed with her 11 pillows, fast asleep. Awoken by a gush of water and the feeling as though I were swimming in a small pond. The internal dialogue went something like this:
Oh God, I peed the bed. I peed the damn bed. How the HELL am I going to get this one past the Hubs? Let me feel. Nope...not pee...at least, it doesn't smell like pee. There's a lot of it, though. What the he... Oh. Oh God. OH MY GOD. My water broke. My water broke. I'm only 32 weeks pregnant and my water broke. NOW what? I should've had a bedtime snack, because boy - I'm hungry. Is it still coming out? Let me feel. Nope. Oh God. What if the baby has dried up like a prune? Or an old, wrinkly leaf? Well wait - sometimes the old wrinkly leaves are damp with mold or dew, and even though they look like they should be dried up, they're not. Wait - my water broke?! Ow! Damn it, fetus, that hurt - don't kick me in the ribs! At least I know you're okay in there, though. Ow! STOP KICKING ME THERE! Wait - why is my back wet? Is that what they mean by back labor? Is she coming out that way? Ew. What the hell? Wait - let me feel. If the cat pissed in the bed and I'm laying it, I'm not going to be happy. I'll kill him. I'll break his neck. I'll.....ohhhhh. The water bottle. It feels flaccid. The water bottle feels flaccid. YAY! The water bottle feels flaccid! Damn piece of crap, what happened, did it explode? It exploded. All over me. And my pillows. And the sheets. Great. Now what? I'm not changing the sheets, and I'm sure as hell not sleeping in wetness. Wait - I know...


Slapping my husband on the arm, I say "hello?" "Hello? I NEED HELP HERE!"
Snork! Snort! Grunt! "Huh?"
"Kenny (explanation to follow) exploded. I need help."

And the scene ends with the two of us schlepping me downstairs to the couch (Hubs' side of the bed isn't comfy, or else I would've stayed there), with my being certain the zombies from I Am Legend that we had finished watching earlier were just waiting for him to go back upstairs so that they could prey upon my fatness. A fun night to end the fun day. It was funny, though. Now. Not then.

As for Kenny. Ohhhh, Kenny, how I enjoyed the little love affair I had with you. Kenny is the hot water bottle who saw me through my pregnancy with baby boy and who was assisting me with this pregnancy, doing his best to soothe away the aches and pains in my back. I used Kenny so much the last time that I have a permanent burn mark on the right side of my back. I like to call it a love wound. But now. Now, my sweet Kenny has left me. Couldn't take the pressure (literally) anymore, I guess, and he exploded from the stress. Poor guy. Now I need to find a replacement. There will never be another Kenny.

Kenny. My love. Wherever you are, and I'm sure you're in a better place now, I just want to thank you for all of our nights together. I'll never forget you.

Good Friday

Not for Jesus, and not in our house, either.

The scene last night:
Our living room. Mama is lying on the couch because the fetus has taken up residence in her right rib cage and she's in a bit of pain. Hubs is sitting on the couch. Baby boy horsing around on his little Elmo couch, a little too close to the entertainment center for mama's comfort.
Mama: He's going to crack his head open!
Hubs: Noooo. He's fine!

Thirty seconds later...literally....
Baby boy crashes head first into the metal knob of the entertainment center. Baby boy starts to scream. Baby boy has a small gash on his forehead, and it's bleeding. And deep.

I said he'd need stitches. Hubs said no. The doctor was called, and we were told he'd probably need stitches - take him to the ER. Long story short, Mama was right...as usual...and my brave baby boy left the ER with the glue sutures and steri-strips. Thank goodness no thread stitches. We had to wake him up every 2-3 hours last night to make sure he was easily roused. Fun times for all.

The scene today:
My cardiologist's office. Routine follow-up visit. Resting heart rate is very high. Doctor tells me that I'm at risk for an enlarged heart and heart failure if it runs this high consistently. I'll have another echocardiogram in a month and if it looks like my heart is "tired," or not functioning properly then I'll be put on medication to give it a rest and we'll "figure some things out."

I felt my world shatter today. I'm terrified. I'm depressed. I'm angry. It's days like this that I want to throw my religion and what little faith I have left out the window. Leave me alone, God. Pick on someone who isn't a young mother. Pick on someone who has lived her life, who doesn't have years and years ahead of her.

I'm terrified that my heart's going to go kaput. That I'll die in my 30s or 40s. That my husband will get remarried to someone who isn't worthy of even knowing my children. That my children won't grow to know their mother, that they won't know that the heart that took their mother away from them once swelled with more love for them than she ever thought existed.

Shit.

Tagged. Again.

Oh, Matter of Fact Mommy, you kill me.

I've been tagged to post 7 confessions about myself. I'm an open book - ask me anything and I'll most likely tell you the truth, but I'm feeling cautious today, so we'll see how crazy these get.

1. Sometimes I pretend I'm in deep sleep if my son wakes up in the middle of the night, just so that my husband will have to get out of bed to tend to the issue at hand. BUT - he falls back to sleep much easier than I do, and I'm pregnant, so come on - it's only fair.

2. I'm still disappointed that I'm having a baby girl instead of a boy. BUT - it mostly stems from being terrified of raising a girl. Mostly.

3. I have a list of celebrity women that I'd turn gay for in a flash. Hence the Angelina Jolie comment in a previous post.

4. I take magazines from my doctor's office. And my OB's office. And the pediatrician's office. And anywhere else from where it wouldn't legally be considered stealing.

5. Friendship is a concept that scares me.

6. Sometimes I take pleasure in pissing people off.

7. I told a grubby 8 or 9-year-old boy that I would rip his head off if he touched me or my son again. BUT - and this was during my playdate today, so imagine the impression I made - he was putting his filthy, trashy hands all over my son (while his filthy, even trashier mother looked on), and after I told him to stop touching my son, he slapped my stomach. HE SLAPPED MY STOMACH! Ohhhh no you didn't. So I bent down and got right in his filthy, stained face and whispered to him, "If you touch my son, or you touch me, ever again, I will rip your head off." I smiled at him, I smiled at his mother, and I watched as he walked away. I won.

Rock the vote!

No, I'm not talking about voting in the upcoming election. I don't even care at this point - the country's in trouble no matter who gets elected. I'm talking about voting in my poll...you know, the one over there <------ about names. I know for a fact that more than 7 people read this blog (including the pervert who found his - 'cause you know it's a guy - way here by Googling lactation fetish), thanks to the little program I have embedded that tells me where all my readers come from. So vote! The votes are anonymous, so I won't hate you if you vote no because I won't know it was you. If I did know, then I'd probably hate you. But vote. Please? The fate of our country (and my daughter's name) depends on it.

Moody

Why do I insist on eating it, even though I KNOW it's going to make me feel sick almost immediately after I've finished it?

Why did the baby have to drop already, making me feel like I have to poop 24/7, and making it near impossible to do anything that involves moving my body? You don't play poop games with pregnant ladies, baby - pooping is a luxury, don't you understand that? Besides - one of the medicines I'm taking has a label that states that I should not be alarmed if bowel movements are red while taking this medication. *I* want to poop red!! (said aloud in my best Veruca Salt voice)

Why in the world did I agree to a play date? I swore I'd never do the play date thing. I'm too lacking in self-confidence, far too shy and feel too inferior to other women. I get nervous and sweaty talking to other people - especially other mothers - and I'll probably wind up making her hate me and making her kid hate my kid. Mommy brain + pregnancy brain = inability to string together words to form coherent sentences (funny how many times I had to retype that for it to make sense), thus making you look, sound, and feel like an idiot. The mom is nice, though, and I know baby boy needs to learn to be around other little gents his age. Maybe I'll take some cough syrup before I go, just to take the edge off. I'm kidding. KIDDING. Kind of.

Why do I always look like a bad tan-in-a-bottle gone wrong when I try to apply translucent loose powder to my face in an attempt to make me look a little less like the undead dead? I'm 31 - I should be skilled in applying makeup by now.

Why do my eyebrows never match when I pluck them?

Why do guys turn into jerks when in a sports setting? I took baby boy out today and had to stand in line at an ice rink to find out where the play area for little gents was. One guys was on the phone, and there were two other guys behind the window talking. You know the kind of guy I'm talking about - meathead, fancy chain and fancier cologne, thinks he's God's gift but in reality probably has a really, really small penis. I'm standing there for a good 5 minutes, holding my really heavy kid so that he doesn't run all over the place, as well as hauling a diaper bag that surely must've weighed 30 pounds. I'm guessing that if I were a foot taller, hot, unpregnant, and had 38D's that weren't in the process of getting ready to lactate...they would've been all too eager to assist me. Bastards. That's the kind of guy I don't want baby boy growing up to be. If I were a single gal and all guys were like that then I'd be a lesbian for sure. Or if Angelina Jolie walked up to me and said, "Hey baby, let's make out." Then, you know...whatever.

Category C

Six weeks, two trips to the hospital, a cat scan, chest x-ray, and many prescription medications later, I finally found a doctor who is actually doing something about the cough. The cough that has caused me to pull every muscle in the left side of my body. The cough that is making me vomit several times a day. The cough that is making me want to kill myself and anyone else I come in contact with.

He's testing me for whopping cough. What is this, 1856? Is whooping cough even around anymore? Apparently it's making a comeback. Fabulous. I'd rather leg warmers and Pepsi Clear have another go at becoming popular, but no, it has to be a bacterial disease.

I am, however, on 3 pretty rockin' drugs, one of which is Tussionex, a lovely cough syrup laced with codeine. Look it up online and it'll tell you that it should only be taken in pregnancy if the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. Well, seeing as though this poor fetus has spent the last 6 weeks listening to and being jostled around by my hacking, puking self, I think the time has come for some kind of intervention. While I do feel a wee bit bad that I'm drugging my fetus, I've already stated that I'm not above taking medication while pregnant (I can imagine the disapproving looks now. Eat me.). The primary concern during a pregnancy should be for the mother - an unhealthy mother can lead to problems in-utero. I'm thankful that I have a doctor who realized that. I'm also thankful that I have a doctor who hooked me up with narcotics. There's nothing like the feeling of drifting off into a codeine-induced fuzzy state of mind-numbing bliss.

*disclaimer - i am not now, nor have i ever been, addicted to drugs, prescription or otherwise. however, i can see how it's easy to become addicted to something that makes you feel like you have no cares in the world, something that allows for a full night of sleep when the aches and pains and fetuses of pregnancy keep you awake night after night after friggin' night. so if you're a prospective employer (do i really have to go back to work when the kids are older and in school? come on!) reading this 5 or 6 years from now after having googled my name, relax - this was written in humor. partially. i mean, i'm not going to lie - if i had a connection that could hook me up with codeine on a regular basis, i'd probably have a problem that required rehab. and if you choose not to hire me based on this blog entry, then i wouldn't want to work for your sorry ass, anyway.

Do you have Fuzzi Bunz?

As if I don't already have enough anxiety over making sure that my daughter-to-be's bits and pieces will shine like the top of the Chrysler Building, I've made the decision to switch from disposable diapers to cloth diapers. Initially we were just going to use cloth for her, but I'm quite certain we'll be making the switch for baby boy, too. Awww, you may be thinking, she's trying to save the environment. Not wanting to clutter up landfills with her babies' waste products and Sesame Street-adorned Pampers. Screw the environment - I'm just sick of buying diapers.

Gone are the days of the Diaper Champ, which only leaves you gagging for a brief second as you flip the head of the diaper pail to dispose of your messy bundle and being rewarded with a quick gust of poopy air. Welcome to the world of flicking poop into the toilet, rinsing poop residue and pee-pee out of the liners in the same sink that I brush my teeth over, and storing them in a pail until ready to wash, surely filling the entire upstairs with the enticing fragrance of newborn poop and toddler explosions. Oh, and let's not forget the daily washings of these fabulous coolie-covers. I love to do laundry every day. Really. Especially when the weather is nice outside.

But hey - I'm saving money, right? Right.

I give it a week.

Just a typical Sunday.

My little family was enjoying breakfast at the Original Pancake House this fine Palm Sunday morning, basking in the goodness and warmth of quiet quality time and orgasmically good blueberry pancakes (or pee-keys, as baby boy calls them). Then it happened. I fell out of my chair. Out of nowhere. In a dining room full of people. Who just kind of stared in half amusement, half horror, at the pregnant lady who just got knocked on her ass by, apparently, an invisible ogre or undetectable gale wind (saying gale wind is actually redundant, as a gale is defined as being a very strong wind, but its most common usage in the English language is as the term gale wind. Just thought you'd like to know).

The first person to come to my rescue? After about 30 seconds? Nope, not my husband. The waitress. The pregnant waitress. We womb-for-wenters, we take care of each other. And, God bless her, what did she say? These damn chairs! They're no good! Kind of like what you would say if, for example, a heftily-weighted person were to sit on a chair and the chair suddenly gives out, shattering in a million different pieces...all to spare their feelings. Despite the searing pain in my side from having landed on a chair leg, I laughed it off and joined my family to finish my pee-keys. When we got up to leave? I pretended I didn't even notice the stares of every person in the room...the people who were just waiting for me to leave so that they could laugh out loud at what had just happened moments ago. A pox on their houses, let me tell you.

And a happy day was had by all.

Geez. It's not like he's the rabbit from Donnie Darko!

See how he's looking off to the side, pleading for rescue? Yep - it's me he's looking at, begging to be saved by mama, who instead is speaking in a high voice, cheering him on while saying, "Come on, buddy, it's okay! It's a bunny! A bun-ny!"

The second daddy took him off the pedophile's Easter Bunny's lap, he was all smiles and eagerly said, "Bye bye, buh-nee."

Can't wait to do this next year with 2 kids.

Random

Forget wondering how I'm going to handle cleaning a baby girl's girly bits. At this point, my stomach is so big that I can barely keep my own clean. And wiping? Forget it. An impossible feat. Bring on the hose. Or the bidet.

Surely you're all familiar with the children's ditty There's A Hole In The Bucket. You know, the song that epitomizes why the majority of women think that the majority of men are idiots? I had to endure a version today that I've never heard before. It must've taken at least thirty minutes to get through the song. It was painful. Horribly, terribly painful. So I choose tonight to present you with a list of things that I'd rather do than listen to this version ever again in my natural lifetime.

Sit in a dark room filled with spiders and the stench of rotted fish.

Go through the rest of my pregnancy without the help of Tylenol PM at bedtime. (Yes, I'm one of those selfish mothers-to-be who would rather get a decent night of sleep than be drug-free during her pregnancy. If it makes me sleep/stop coughing/forget who I am for a little while, I'll take it.)

Stop eating ice cream.

Watch Stephen King's It by myself in a dark room filled with balloons and man-eating clowns.

And lastly?

Get pregnant again.

Things I hope to never pass on to my children

My fear of spiders, the dark, and death. Oh, and of the smell of fish.

My expanded vocabulary of obscenities and ability to string them all together flawlessly in one sentence.

My tendency to judge people based on appearance, although my judgements tend to end up being spot-on assessments of character.

My low self-esteem.

The nasty case of what appears to be ringworm on the backs of my hands.

My clotting disorder.

My carb addiction (as I sit here eating ice cream straight out of the half gallon container).

My socially awkward tendencies.

My hypochondriasis overwhelming concern for my health.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but I'm dripping ice cream on the keyboard, and I don't want my husband knowing that I eat at the computer. It's forbidden in my house!

Ok - so my control issues. Don't want them feeling the need to be in charge all the time like I do. Even though that's the way it should be. And it is. :)

Something you should never have to hear; Names

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my mom on the phone, complaining that I didn't know what the heck to do with a girl since all I know now are cars and gross boy noises. I told her that I was a wee bit nervous about cleaning baby-girl-to-be's girly bits and having to wipe from front to back (I don't - too complicated), and that I imagined Hubs was, too. Her response? Well, if your father can do it, anyone can.

Ohhhh, sweet Jesus. Sweet Jesus Christ. La la la stop talking stop talking STOP talking.

That's a visual I never ever wanted to have. But that's why I love my mom. She comes out with some funny stuff sometimes.

I do believe we've settled on a name for the baby girl. Not sure if I'll reveal it ahead of time, but it's killer. Unique. A boy's unisex name, just like my own. The meaning is "The Lord is my God." Maybe she'll grow up to be involved in something religious. Or, maybe she'll grow up to become a serial killer because she hates her name.

I want my family to be like the Camdens

The latest news of our lovely Governor, Eliot skank pig cut-off-his-balls Spitzer, has me wondering something -

How do *I* get myself into a prostitution ring so that *I* can earn upwards of $2000 an hour?

I kid, I kid. Actually, it's things like this that, as a mother to a little boy, terrify me. How the hell do I make sure my baby doesn't grow up to be this kind of a man? I'm not sure if Spitzer's father was a hooker-hoisting sonofabitch, but I'm not sure that, even if he were, that would be an excuse.

My son has a good man (my husband, duh) as a father. Someone who, I hope with my whole heart, would never be unfaithful to me. If he were, though, and I were to find out, I can't say that I know how I would react. Silda, Spitzer's wife, looks like a frigid bitch heartbroken, devoted wife....I imagine I would feel the same.

In any case, as far as the whole how to be a good man thing goes, I'm confident that my husband is a good example for the baby. I remember back to high school, though, and so many of those guys were absolute jerks. Disrespectful, verbally and/or physically abusive, cocky, arrogant...the list goes on. So many of them hated their parents. A few were involved with drugs. Many of them drank all throughout high school. Keep in mind that I graduated with a class of 33...there were less than 100 people in my high school during my 4 years there, so it's easy to keep tabs on what was going on. I need there to be a manual somewhere out there that will educate me as to the proper way to raise a child so that he/she will grow up thankful for what the have and always knowing what the right thing is. I expect my child (I'll be able to say children in less than two months....holy God) to make mistakes in his youth. I *want* him to, so that he may learn from his mistakes. But I don't want something to happen along the way where either a) we stop noticing the mistakes and "lose" him as a result or b) he stops sharing with us and we "lose" him as a result. How the heck do parents make sure this doesn't happen?

I grew up in a Catholic household and attended a private Catholic school for 12 years. And I'm still not convinced that faith and God are the answer. My husband's feeling is that changing ourselves (read: change ME), as well as becoming regular church-goers and bringing faith into our home will be a big part of it, but I don't buy it. I know he's going to read this and get defensive and it'll probably start a fight. I grew up with a couple of people whose parents did this very thing...and it didn't avoid these people hating their parents, even now as adults, getting involved with drugs and/or alcohol, and just basically not making any good out of their lives. It scares me.

I was rocking the baby before his nap a little while ago, and I couldn't help but stare down at him as he was drifting off and getting teary. I willed him, through his slumbering ears, to always stay sweet. To always remember how much I love him, how I would always, always love him. I told him that I would do my best to teach him the right things and how to be a good person. I asked time to slow down a little.

How, if at all, are your fears about your growing children quelled?

Tagged

I was tagged by Matter of Fact Mommy on her blog to write about the following:

7 Random Food Facts (About Myself)

Without further ado, I present:

1. I will not send food back in a restaurant. Haven't you ever heard of sneezers? Or watched the horrendous movie Waiting? I don't want some dude's bodily fluids floating around in my pasta, thank you very much.

2. Did you know that it is a common occurrence to find fly wings in commercially processed peanut butter? And it's not even illegal!

3. If you can't cook - don't. The smells coming from your home may be pleasant to you, but when they make my son's bedroom smell like rotted liver and onions for days on end...well...buy a cookbook or something and follow the recipe correctly. A layer of jam. A layer of lady fingers. A layer of whipped cream. Then beef sauteed with onions and peas.....

4. Chances are if it has caused me to vomit, whether because of a stomach bug, morning sickness, or its general digustingness, I won't eat it again.

5. If I'm going to eat the chicken, I can't clean and trim the chicken. I just can't.

6. Browning ground beef always smells like poop to me.

7. I love pumpernickel bread, but can't stand caraway seeds. Go figure.

Full disclosure

I've just eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, about a pound of grapes, a Stringsters, and a big bowl of cereal. And I'm starving. The fetus must be having a growth spurt. Either that or she really wants a big fat fatty of a mother so she can sing the song we all remember from our youth: Fatty fatty two by four, couldn't fit through the bathroom door. So she did it on the floor, licked it up and asked for more. Or maybe it's just another one of those songs that only kids who attend private Catholic schools were privy to. I have a bunch of them. And I can't wait to teach them to my own kids. I can see it now - Baby Boy in a few years when he attends kindergarten - "Teacher teacher! Stick your finger in this hole...." THAT'LL be a fun phone call.

Now that I've disclosed my hypochondriasis perpetual concern for my health I find myself at ease with sharing today's ailment. My kidneys. My kidneys, my kidneys, my kidneys, my poor friggin' kidneys. My poor scarred, bruised kidneys. I'm pretty sure I have a kidney infection/stone/tumor in my left kidney. And it's funny to know that I tend to panic, yet I also tend not to bring my concerns to the doctor very often. Why? I'd rather not find out if anything's wrong. Totally logical, right? Last night I was certain that I coughed so hard it separated a ventricle or artery from my heart, and that's why it was hurting on my left side every time I coughed. Oh - and I think I mentioned to my husband that I probably had throat cancer because when I swallowed it felt like there was a marble in the back of my throat on the left side.

It's all about the left side right now. The right side is getting jealous - I might have to go run into a wall to make it feel better.

I totally thought of more

Just when I thought I was crazy enough, I came up with a few more of my little quirks. Remember - they're what make me endearing.

17. I sleep in a tank top and pajama pants every night. I know - sexy. I have to wear the tank tops inside out, though. I can't sleep if they're outside in.

18. I'm very skittish about my health. I always assume the worst case scenario. For example - this mother effing cough that I still have? I'm pretty sure that it has turned into throat cancer. Like, 99%. I'm not a hypochondriac. I'M NOT.

19a. I hate talking to people on the phone. Not that I hate people (although I am what some would label socially awkward), I just get very uncomfortable talking on the phone. I'd much rather e-mail.

19b. I have a phobia of doctors. Specifically speaking to them on the telephone. I make my husband call the doctor for me when I'm sick/having pregnancy issues, and he relays my symptoms. I'm sure the doctors all think I'm mentally incompetent...I don't care. Most of them are medically incompetent, so we're even.

20. I always think people are talking about me.

I think that might be it. I think that's probably enough. If the wrong ex-landlord person reads this they're likely to have me committed or declared an unfit mother. Woof.

Everyone's a rittle bit lacist

Avenue Q. Some of the funniest stuff to cross a Broadway stage.

My husband has told me on more than one occasion that I'm weird. When I ask him why, then, did he marry me, his response is usually along the lines of blah blah blah....neurotic tendencies...blah blah...endearing. So tonight I dedicate a blog post to all of my idiosyncrasies. They're what make me me.

1. I hate body hair. On anyone, including myself. It repulses me to no end.
2. Ever see the movie Mr. Magorium's Something-or-Other Emporium? The weird finger thing Natalie Portman does? I do that, except I do it to whatever song happens to be going through my head at the moment, including commercials and ditties from Sesame Street.
3. I count stairs when I walk them. Every time. Even in my own home.
4. I can't eat the ends of a loaf of commercially processed bread, but I love to eat the heels of freshly baked French or Italian bread. The ends of a bagged loaf make me gag.
5. I also take issue with eating the last end of many foods. Hot dogs, pickles - I can eat the end that is bitten off in the first bite, but I can't eat the end that would be the last bite. I have to throw it away.
6. If I bang/burn/bite/stub one part of my body, I have to do the same to the other side to make it fair. For example - if I stub my left big toe, I have to lightly kick a chair or wall with the right big toe. If I don't, it almost makes my skin crawl.

Think I'm effed up yet? This is nothing.

7. I have to throw the outer 5 leaves of a head of lettuce away. I can't eat them. I believe they're tainted.
8. I can't buy/eat anything store brand/generic (other than Wegmans pasta) because I believe I will find bugs inside the package. Especially canned goods.
9. Sometimes I just have to make a noise to make sure my voice still works.
10. I can't share a drink or utensil with my husband. The very thought grosses me out. Considering where both of our mouths have been....I don't get it. I could further elaborate, but I don't want to embarrass anyone.
11. I have to use the spellcheck feature several times in e-mails and blogging. I have no patience for misspelled words.
12. I have to look at people's teeth when I'm talking to them. If your teeth are less than perfect, you can be damn sure I'll notice.
13. The piece of toilet paper that will be used next on the roll must be facing up, not down and left hanging.
14. Before I use a glass or mug, it must be rinsed out 3 times with hot water.
15. I don't touch door handles in public places. I grab them with my sleeves or wait for someone to hold the door.
16. I'm a germophobe. Not hardcore, but enough.

That's all I can come up with right now. I know there are more, but I don't want to scare you too badly.

The Mating Call of the Bronchial-ly Afflicted

Or, my time in the ER last night.

My brilliant doctor, who I'll affectionately label Dr. Douchebag until we can find another family practitioner and then I'll be happy to plaster his name all over the internet, decided to send me to the ER to rule out a pulmonary embolism. I've had lung cancer TB the plague this awful cough for just about a month now. It's not getting better. At times it appears that it's getting worse. Five prescription drug interventions, two rounds of blood work, a chest c-ray and a nasal-pharyngeal suction have revealed nothing. I asked the genius if he could instead call the hospital to schedule an outpatient CT scan, which was what I was being sent to the ER to have done, and he refused. Apparently that's not the way they do things in Western New York. Ohhhkay. Because it was early in the day, I was assured by my husband that I'd be in and out.

I was there for 10 hours.

The hubs dropped me off so that he could take baby boy home. As soon as I walked in and said I needed to be seen, the greeter took one look at my swollen belly, asked how far along I was, and told me to go to the Mother-Baby floor, as anyone over 20 weeks automatically gets sent there. I told him this wasn't related to the baby, I didn't know where the M-B floor was, and if he wanted me to go there then he'd be arranging for someone to take me. I was, after all, having some obvious shortness of breath and a bit of pain...I wasn't going to be walking all over this giant hospital, breathing in the air of death and the stink of illness. He arranged for someone to take me upstairs. The bitch in command Labor and Delivery Charge Nurse asked if I was in labor, I told her no, and she told me to go back downstairs because they didn't deal with pregnant women not in labor. Ohhkay. I told her to call downstairs and to get the story straight with the ER, and if she wanted me downstairs then she could arrange to have me taken back down there. Long story short - I was waiting in the waiting room for 5 hours before I was taken back to a room. Four of those hours were spent sitting next to a 3-year-old girl who fell in the tub, split her chin, and was bleeding all over the place. For the entire 4 hours. Hello - OSHA would have a friggin' field day with that one. I was in utter disbelief that no one took this poor little girl back to have sutures.

Once I was in a room (they don't have enough ER rooms, but each room does have a nice flat panel widescreen television) I could hear that the patient in the room next door was having about as much fun as I was with a awful cough. For much of the night, when I would cough, he would cough...hence the title of this post. It was much like the Dueling Banjos, except instead of the twangy plucking of the strings it was a dry, hacking, non-phlegm-producing cough that is so forceful it raises your blood pressure and makes a pregnant woman worry that one more hack is going to bring forth her child. It was almost as if he was trying to one-up me on my coughing spells. He won, though - he got the steroids, got better, and got to leave.

The doctor told me he'd order a CT scan with radiation. Yep, had those before. Many. When you're pregnant and in the ER and require any kind of x-ray, you're made to feel like a horrible person when you give your consent to have the procedure. You must sign about 70 pieces of paper stating that you are aware of the potential devastating effects of the radiation on the fetus, and that you can not hold us responsible if your baby comes our with a hare-lip, unibrow, and undying love for Tiny Tim. Of course, if you elect not to have this procedure we can miss a life-threatening blood clot in your lung, and if you were to have one and die...well, you can't hold us responsible for that either.

In the CT room, the tech explained that he'd shield my belly the best that he could, that he'd reduce the beam to only focus on my chest (stop staring at my boobs, dude), and that he'd go as quickly as possible so that I wouldn't have to be on my back (you know you want me) for too long. He threw the lead blanket over me and went in back to do his thing. I moved through the tube, he ran the first set of scans, and I noticed that the fetus jumped as soon as the machine started to whir. I told her silently that it was okay, not to be scared, and that I was sorry I had to do this but I had to make sure we were okay (shut up, Hubs) when I suddenly heard Whoops, gotta move THAT up more. Jesus. The guy didn't put the blanket on high enough and part of my uterus and the baby showed up on the scan. Way to go, Dick. If my kid is born looking like Bert from Sesame Street, foam filling and all, I'm a-comin' after you.

Long long LONG story short, I was discharged at 2:30 a.m. with the all-clear. But I still don't know what the hell is causing this cough. I did, however, have the pleasure of listening to a man pass a kidney stone. Wuss.

My hell

I hate being pregnant. Hate it. More than I hate WalMart. I hated it the first time, too, and just when I thought I couldn't hate it anymore...well, I just decided that I do.

A friend of mine told me that she never felt better than she did when she was pregnant. It must really suck being her. I hate the women who have that pregnancy glow. The women who appear to have endless amounts of energy and spunk. The women who look cute when they're pregnant. I feel like I look like a really fat Jeff Daniels.

I'm obsessed with Celebrity Baby Blog. I'm a pop-culture junkie, so how can I not be? But while I enjoy the voyeuristic nature of gawking at celeb photos, enjoying the opportunity to see and learn that Kelly Ripa and Jennie Garth look like real people when they're shopping at Target, I get pissed at the same time when I see pictures of people like Nicole Kidman and Jessica Alba, both pregnant, coming out of the gym after an alleged hard workout. CBB had a picture of Nic the other day supposedly leaving the gym after a spinning class. Her torso is about as wide as my jiggly tricep - how the hell can a baby fit in there? And hello - I can barely sit on our cushy sofa for 10 minutes before pregnancy-induced sciatic pain sends me waddling to the medicine cabinet, hoping that the Percocet Fairy left me a surprise to dull my aches, pains and brain cells. How is it possibly comfortable to sit on the crotch-crunching bicycle seats, to listen to some Bike Nazi instructor bark out orders to up the resistance without pregnancy hormones taking over and causing a mass homicide? Jessica Alba is about as far along as I am. She looks like she ate too much bread. Me? I look like I ate Jessica Alba. Now, I love me some exercise, and I can't wait until I can move quickly enough to get my fat ass back to the gym to lose every ounce of baby weight, but come on, girls - it's okay to let your bodies take over a bit.

I'm at the point in the 3rd trimester when you're quite certain that sudden death would be an adequate cure for the aches and pains. I can't remember the last time I slept longer than 45 minutes at a time. I have to pick up my stomach to roll over in bed...that is, if I'm lucky enough to have a night where it doesn't feel like my lungs are being trampled by a herd of elephants when I attempt to sleep on my side. I sleep with nine - 9 - pillows in my bed. I need to be propped up most of the night, because 75% of the time I can't sleep on my side as it feels like the very air is being sucked out of my body. When I sleep propped up, though, my hips become stiff and the sciatic pain kicks in after a while...right about the time I have to get up to pee, making the process of getting out of bed something that would likely pass as a popular circus side show.

Heartburn and cankles. Dry skin. Dry hair. Dry heaves. Yes, it's all worth it in the end, blah blah blah, but when you're so damn uncomfortable to the point of asking your pharmacist sister to score you some narcotics to make you forget about how uncomfortable you are, it's hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel.

Frosted Flakes and Cheetos do not a good breakfast make.

I'm just sayin'.

I just gave myself my daily injection of Lovenox (one of the many joys of my pregnancy). Upon pulling the needle out, blood spurted all over my pretty deep-pink powder room. I think I may have punctured the fetus. Thanks to these injections, I don't have a pretty pregnant belly. It's covered in bruises. I do get creative with the injections, though. Because I don't have the balls to inject myself in the thigh, I give myself these shots in the stomach, under the belly button area in a u-shape. I don't have any stretch marks visible from my first pregnancy, but I do have 2 small ones above my belly, the same size, equidistant from my belly button, and at symmetrical angles. Between these badges of courage stretch marks, my belly button and the locations of the bruises, my belly looks like a Chinese man's face. If I get brave I'll post a picture. It's really quite amusing.

My gripe today is with WalMart. I hate WalMart. Loathe and despise it, even. But sometimes, on a rare occasion, I'll need to go there for something that the retail mecca that is Target does not carry. Today was that rare occasion. I need an old-school window shade to prevent anymore early morning sunlight from entering my son's bedroom through the very expensive blackout curtain we already have on the window. Mama's a little tired of his 5 a.m. wakings - I think the boy is part rooster.

Anyway...

WalMart. I'm already annoyed that I have to bundle the kid up to take him out. It's freezing out. It was 60 degrees in Western NY yesterday - today, we're expecting half an inch of ice and highs of 24. Gotta love the Northeast. We get there half an hour after the damn store opens and the parking lot is nearly filled. There's already about a mile gap between the closest possible/handicapped parking spots in the lot and the store's entrance, so it's going to be a 5K trek from wherever we park to the front door. I'm pretty sure my baby boy weighs close to 100 pounds at this point - at least that's what it feels like - and, being 16 months pregnant with sciatic pain running from the left side of my ass down to my cankles, this wasn't going to be a fun walk. What made it better was the sheet of black ice that I apparently parked on. As I walked around the back of the car to get the baby from his car seat, I slipped and, while I didn't fall on the ground, I did "land" face first into the backseat passenger window, inches from my boy...who found my antics terribly amusing and saw fit to laugh at his mama, who was trying very hard not to let the obscenities come flooding out.

We made it into the store without further incident and were greeted - not by the WalMart greeter - but by the smell. Do all WalMart stores smell, or is it just this one? I can't tell if it's the Subway shop that is just inside the store, or the clientele (minus my son and me, of course, despite the fact that I haven't showered since Sunday), but ohhhhh, the smell. I don't even think I can put a finger on what the smell is, not that I'd like to anyway, but I feel obligated to share with you, dear readers, just what I had to breathe in this fine wintry morning whilst pushing my squeaky cart through the aisles. Bacon, mayonnaise, and dirty ass, perhaps? No, not quite it. Oh, and the parking lot filled with cars? Where the hell were all the people driving these cars? They certainly weren't shopping, and God knows they weren't working in the store because every time I grace this store with my presence the lines are longer than my husband's stories about his college days. That's another thing about WalMart - 20 checkouts, only 4 or 5 of which are ever open. EV-ER. Forty dollars later, we made it out alive. The store was, of course, out of stock of the appropriately-sized shades and kitchen-sized garbage cans, something else we desperately need so that my son will stop picking food out of the garbage and eating it, but at least I got some new mascara that promises to plump without clump.

My gram's bathroom, Old Spice, and hard-boiled eggs? That's it!

16 months

Because I know that some people actually read this only for the purpose of getting updates on baby boy, I present the following.

As he turns 16 months old, I find myself thinking back just a month or two and feeling silly about worrying whether he'd ever walk or talk. Now I can't get him to shut up or sit still. We have constant movement and constant chattering...some of which is intelligible, some of which you know he's talking smack to and about you in his own language, and the rest of which causes you to wish you had an interpreter.

The funniest thing, perhaps, is that he will occasionally say "shit." Being the wholesome creature I am, I couldn't possibly imagine where he learned this word, but he says it and smiles. He doesn't say it in context, for which I am thankful...but I need to stop reacting with a laugh or smile and hope that he hasn't picked up any other words from...Sesame Street, I guess? After that episode last week, I wouldn't be surprised!

He loves to drink hot peppermint tea, and when he sees Regis and Kelly or The View gals with their coffee mugs on television, he'll run over to the screen and yell, "Tea! Tea!" Oh - and before someone comments and mentions that I don't allow him to watch much kid television yet I watch these shows with him present, let it be said that I only have these shows on for about the first 15 minutes of each, as the "host chat" and "hot topics segment" are all I care about, and I have it on more for the sound while I'm picking up from breakfast or folding laundry. So whatever. Of course, today he pointed at Barbara Walters on the screen and said "baba." My little comedian. Get it? The old Baba Wawa joke?

He loves to dance. We have music on most of the time here, and more often than not it's parent-friendly kid music. Trout Fishing in America, Laurie Berkner, and Elizabeth Mitchell are our favorites. He's partial to Elizabeth Mitchell and her folk renditions of some classic children's songs as well as her own material. He chimes in with the words at times, both in time with the cd and when I sing for him. This impresses me.

He has discovered Thomas the Tank Engine. LOVES Thomas. Our Barnes and Noble here has a huge TtTE train table out for kids to play with, and when I'm looking to get him out for some cheap fun, that's where I take him. It's his Disney World right now. I wish I could afford to buy him the set, but it's hundreds and hundreds of dollars - any takers out there want to hook my kid up?

His vocab is impressive. Still isn't calling me mama the way he calls for his daddy, but at least he can say it. That's all that matters. I'm pretty sure he called me "sexy" when I walked into his room this morning, though.

He loves to color - especially on the walls and the couch - and play with his cars. Picking the cat up by the tail has become a new hobby, as has running end-to-end on the sectional sofa, threatening to crack his skull open every time.

The child loves to eat. He's definitely my boy. He could probably survive on chicken, bagels, butter, ketchup, and apples dipped in peanut butter. I do feed him more than that, of course, and he is a pretty healthy eater. I'm surprised.

He loves babies. Pictures of babies, real babies, and his little baby doll. I'm really hoping that he will be equally thrilled when his baby sister comes home in a few months.

He's doing really well. I'm pleased with where he seems to be developmentally and socially, and despite the early-stage terrible 2's he can occasionally exhibit, I still love spending every day with him. I wish I knew what, if anything, I could do to soften the blow of the new baby and to let him know that he'll always have a special place in my heart.